The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!
The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! is an American television series based upon Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 2. It is the first of three TV shows based on the Nintendo video game series, with the other being The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World. It was originally broadcast via first-run syndication from September 4, 1989 to December 1, 1989, with reruns continuing until September 6, 1991. Why It Rocks # Great voice acting (except Toad). # This animated segment was surprisingly sandwiched between two live-action segments. # Lovable characters, most notably Mario and Luigi. # Good grasp of the source material. # The live-action segment was very super, in a favor of children's urban fantasy sitcoms on Saturday morning television. # It amazingly used sound effects for the Nintendo video games. # They decided to merge the mid bosses from Mario 2 with Bowser (aka King Koopa) from Mario 1, which makes surprisingly good results. # Princess Toadstool (later renamed as Peach) is actually an active character who fights back instead of being a damsel in distress who has be to saved all the time. She still gets kidnapped, but does manage to fight back sometimes. # At the end of each episode, Mario and Luigi tells the viewers to tune in next time, by saying "Until next time, everybody... do the Mario!". # The live-action segments with the late Captain Lou Albano and Danny Wells can be funny. # The animation is passable. # Many moments spawned internet memes. # Amazing rap-like opening theme music. “Do the Mario” is very fun to listen to and is catchy. # Shares some elements with ''The Ren & Stimpy Show'', [[SpongeBob SquarePants]] and ''Rocko's Modern Life''. Bad Qualities # Mario and Luigi act too much like Italian stereotypes often, especially the Italian food puns. At times, the viewer can find Mario's Italian food obsession annoying. # Most of the episodes are just cheap spoofs of popular films (Toad Warriors, Star Koopa, Raiders of the Lost Mushroom, Princess, I Shrunk the Mario Brothers). # Some bad episodes, like "Two Plumbers and a Baby" (a.k.a. The Most Disturbing Mario Cartoon Episode). # Toad has an annoying voice. # Most of the episodes' settings made no sense, with no explanation of how the characters ended up there. # The animation is decent, but there are some animation errors at times. # Most of the music is pretty annoying and bland. Like the Plumber Rap and Do the Mario. And the ones that are neither are just popular songs played in all of the episodes like when they played Surfin Bird in the very first episode. # There have been scenes throughout the series that don't really add up. Like when Princess Toadstool throws a bomb at one of King Koopa's minions, the minion jumps off the truck while still holding onto the bomb instead of throwing it. # At times, Princess Toadstool can be a bit annoying and naive. Reception The Super Mario Bros. Super Show has a 6.3/10 rating on the IMDB, a 8.2/10 on TV.Com, and has a Google Users rating of "91% liked this TV show. Mark Bozon of IGN referred the series as "the biggest offender among Nintendo's many embarrassing moments" but thought that the animated shorts were "interesting to look back on". Common Sense Media rated the show 1 out of 5 stars, stating that the "frenetic '80s cult fave with stereotypes hasn't aged well." Mike Hughes of USA Today described the series as a "surprising disappointment", opening that the series has "little of the wit and spark" and relies too heavily on slapstick.